St. Valentine's Day Massacre

by pessimist

On February 14, 1929, several members of the Bugs Moran Gang were lured to a garage on North Clark Street in Chicago by the promise of a deal involving Canadian Whiskey, but the only spirits involved were their own once they were liberated from their bodies by the liberal topical application of plumbium.

On February 14, 2005, several operatives of the BFEE/PNAC Petroelum Pirate Posse conducted an operation against an upstart Lebanese businessman seeking to cut a piece of the action for himself, and against the wishes of King George Warmonger.

Michael Corlenone: "My father is no different than any other powerful man -- any man who's responsible for other people, like a senator or president." Kay Corleone: "You know how naive you sound...senators and presidents don't have men killed." Michael Corleone: "Oh, who's being naive, Kay?"

"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active service in the country's most agile military force, the Marines. I served in all ranks from second Lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
- Major General Smedley Butler, from I was a Gangster for Capitalism

"If anything in this life is certain; If history has taught us anything, it's that you can kill anyone."

Hariri's assassination was a mob hit. An international corporatist mob hit, but a mob hit none the less. Just take a look at the blast photos if you need a clue. Ever see so much devastation from a terrorist (read: amateur) bomb? These guys were pros, and the blast evidence proves it.

"I don't like your kind of people. I don't like to see you come out to this clean country in oily hair, and dressed up in those silk suits, and try to pass yourselves off as decent Americans. I despise your masquerade; the dishonest way you pose yourself, yourself and your fucking family."

"Don't you know that I would use all of my power to prevent something like that from happening?"

Hariri had other ambitions as well, ones that would put him in the crosshairs of those whose plans couod be thwarted should Hariri succeed. Hariri was an Arab nationalist, one who believes in Arabs gaining the sort of power that certain groups in the United States now wield in a rash and careless manner. He believed that the economic power the Arab world gained through the sale of petroleum to an addicted West should be used to free the Arab world from the domination and oppression that it suffers to this day from Western forces eager to secure for themselves the substance of their addiction - oil.

"I don't like violence, Tom. I'm a businessman. Blood is a big expense."

But these things alone weren't enough to cause Hariri's death. The open desire of Bu$hCo to establish a secure oil pipeline to Israel - a pipeline that currently exists, but is in no shape to be used even if local political conditions allowed it - is the first item on the hit list. The fact that it runs through Syria is another. The fact that Syrian troops act as the police in a country caught up in the war between Israel and the Palestinians is another.

Take all of these things, and then remember the PNAC Manifesto, which declared that the US needed to suffer 'another Pearl Harbor' in order to quell any public opposition to their plans for world domination at the expense of the mostly-Muslim populations that just happen to float on dwindling seas of oil. Now apply this strategem to the Middle East, and it becomes clearer that Hariri was getting in the way.

"It makes no difference to me what a man does for a living, understand."

By sacrificing Hariri, many problems would be solved. First, Bu$hCo would - as it currently is - be able to use Hariri's death as an excuse to open hostilities with Syria, something long-desired by Bu$hCo, and openly expressed during at least one State of the Union speech ('Syria is a part of the axis of evil...'). Second, a new and less-vulnerable supply route to Iraq would become available - one that could not be disrupted by attacks in the Straits of Hormuz during a war against Iran. Third, local nationalists would be cowed by the idea that the Hariri hit could happen to them if they get to big for their britches, and would be less likely to buck the new feudalism being imposed upon their nations by the West.

"So the next day, my father went to see him; only this time with Luca Brasi. An' within an hour, he signed a release, for a certified check for $1000. [Kay: "How'd he do that?"] My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse. [Kay: "What was that?"] Luca Brasi held a gun to his head and my father assured him that either his brains, or his signature, would be on the contract. That's a true story. That's my family, Kay, it's not me."

It would also serve as a message to the Saudis to continue to sacrifice their profits by over-pumping their fields, thus keeping gas prices from rising enough to kill off King George's 'recovery'. The Saudis are cutting their own long-term throats (not that they are getting much sympathy from me over this - they brought it on themselves!) in order to remain in power. They know that there is great discontent in their land over the way they have ruled. Their financial assets aren't enough anymore to buy peace from their people through direct handouts.

"I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see. They talk when they should be listening."

Instead, the people of Saudi Arabia desire that the corrupt royal family be replaced by a Wahhabist Muslim regime - a delicious irony since the Saudis have been using Wahhabism as a tool to suppress their own people and their desires for a better life for decades.

"I'll make an offer he don't refuse. Don't worry."

The Saudi family knows that the US can - and will - take advantage of such unrest to topple them from power, and replace them with a regime much more friendly to the US and end the flow of vast sums of cash to be used to play with such toys as F-16 fighter jets. They know what Saddam's fall - and now Hariri's - means: Play ball, or hit the wall.

This can only go on so long before the US runs out of assets to use in this game of international extortion. In fact, signs that this is happening include this story:

The last time Dr. Floyd Baker served in the U.S. Army, Harry S. Truman was president, Dinah Shore's "Buttons and Bows" topped the music charts, "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" won an Oscar and the bikini made its debut on American beaches.

So the 84-year-old semi-retired dentist from Philadelphia was a little surprised last August when he got a letter from a local Army recruiting station inviting him to re-enlist. "I was honorably discharged in 1948," said Baker, who was drafted in 1946 and left the Army with captain's bars on his shoulders. "I thought the letter belonged to somebody else, knowing when I got in the Army and when I got out. I thought it was a mistake."

Baker really began thinking the Army's offer was serious after he talked last week to a senior-citizen friend at a Philadelphia-area Veterans Administration facility who'd received a similar letter.

A spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command at Fort Knox said Baker's letter probably had resulted from someone not checking ages along with names from recruiting efforts or the mass-mailing lists the Army buys from marketing firms.

Baker's letters may be a simple bureaucratic mistake, but they're also symptomatic of how the U.S. military is struggling to fill its ranks as it's stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The world isn't going to sit by idly and watch Bu$hco swagger about unchallenged forever, so someday Bu$hCo will be faced with a challenge that will end their rampant abuse. An army of octagenarians, while taking care of that pesky Social Security thing, isn't going to be the answer to this challenge. Whether the challange takes on the form of an opposing military, or if the world calls in all the federal debt notes they have been patiently holding while King George Warmonger struts about like the Mussolini-wannabe he is, they will insist that it ends. Do you think that this will impress them?

"You sonofabitch, do you know who I am? I'm Moe Greene! I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders."

I don't think so. We all know what happens to Moe Greene, don't we?

Is this the fate you desire for your country? Better brush up on that Mandarin. You might need it.

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